http://www.hardwarezone.com/news/view.php?id=10248&cid=5

Manila, Philippines — IBM announces that it has won the “Most innovative use of VMware Virtual Infrastructure” award at VMworld 2008 Europe for its implementation of VMware desktop virtualization solutions by IBM Global Services Virtual Infrastructure Access (VIA) Services. Using virtual desktops, which are hosted in the datacenter and accessed from anywhere, organizations can provide security enhanced application and information access, improving availability to end users, while reducing cost and complexity.

The “Most innovative use of VMware Virtual Infrastructure” award is given to VMware partners that are first-to-market with industry-leading service solutions and who provide innovative technology and a comprehensive service wrap-around. IBM VIA Services provides clients with an integrated solution to assess, design, implement and manage virtual desktops, enabling employees, partners, and customers to access their desktop from thin clients.

Very cool and well done for IBM, virtualization of the desktop is becoming one of those topics of interest in terms of developing platforms to reduce the cost of supplying and supporting the desktop. A virtual desktop can be a great way of doing this, and allows more central approach, reducing support costs and hopefully bringing the benefits of virtualization, a more fluidic desktop infrastructure. Anything the virtualization vendors, partners and IBM can do to aid this, has to be a good thing for the virtual desktop platform and the industry.